Yearly Archive: 2015

The Point Radio: Long Live THE NERDS

The new season of KING OF THE NERDS is here from TBS, which gave us the chance to catch up with show creator and host, Curtis Armstrong who talks about the challenges in getting “good nerds” and how the whole idea came from a film that was a bit less than a movie blockbuster. Plus this weekend, Ben Barnes portrays Sam Adams in the three night mini series SONS OF LIBERTY and tells us what surprising facts he learned from the script.

On Monday, we head backstage to the set of USA Network’s SUITS with series star, Patrick Adams.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: THE LAW IS A ASS #342: BATMAN’S SEPARATION ANXIETY

3801678-batman-eternal-004-2014-digital-nahga-empire-020-9661170Things aren’t looking good over in Batman Eternal. Not for former police commissioner Jim Gordon. Not for Batman. And not for us.

Not for Gordon, because eight issues into this fifty-two issue maxi-series, he’s still sitting in Blackgate Penitentiary awaiting trial for 162 counts of manslaughter. Not for Batman, because his best friend and former police commissioner is in Blackgate leaving Batman with interim commissioner Jack Forbes. And not for us, because eight issues into the fifty-two issue maxi-series that is Batman Eternal, we’ve realized its glacial pacing shows no signs of melting even with global warming. Seriously, this story has more padding than bubble wrap.

So what is it this time that’s got my spleen venting like a Yellowstone geyser? It’s interim police commissioner Jack Forbes. When we first met Forbes, back in Batman: The Dark Knight # 1, he was a lieutenant in Internal Affairs and had a bug up his butt about costumed vigilantes. Seems he longed for the good old days when the police were treated like kings and got to gun down the people they didn’t like. Also he was a police officer in Gotham City who wasn’t named Gordon, Bullock, Sawyer, or Montoya and that means he was…

(Come on, Sing Along With Bob. Unlike with Mitch, you don’t need a bouncing ball. You know the words.)

… Completely corrupt. As in, Forbes is so is Carmine Falcone’s pocket, that Falcone doesn’t have room for lint. After former commissioner Jim Gordon was arrested, Falcone used his influence on Mayor Sebastian Hady – a corrupt politician who’s not just in Falcone’s pocket, he might as well be Falcone’s house key – to have Forbes installed as police commissioner.

Forbes’s first act as commissioner – literally, I think he did it even before breathing – was to declare war on Batman. And that brings us up to speed on Batman Eternal. (Which may be the only time that speed and Batman Eternal appear in the same sentence.)

Even after Forbes was appointed commissioner, Batman did what Batman does. He rounded up bad guys. Particularly bad guys in the employ of Falcone. Then Falcone pulled on Forbes’s leash and Forbes ordered the police to release all those criminals that Batman “practically gift-wrapped” because, “Commissioner Forbes doesn’t recognize Batman. Says the city prosecutor has no authority to prosecute anybody brought in by a vigilante.”

First, how do you not recognize Batman? He’s 6’ 2” rocks a gray armored unitard and sports  a face mask with big pointy ears. How do you not know who he is when you see him? Second, Mr. Forbes, I know when Carmine Falcone says, “Jump!” you doesn’t bother asking, “How High?” you just hope matching LeBron James’s vertical leap is good enough, but when you do your master’s bidding don’t make it so damn obvious.

Forbes, if you want to say the city prosecutor can’t prosecute anybody brought in by Batman, because there weren’t any other witnesses to their criminal activities and Batman can’t testify, I could live with that, because that would be an accurate statement of the laws. But the city prosecutor has no authority to prosecute anyone brought in by a vigilante? Why don’t you just polish Falcone’s hip flask, while you’re making yourself at home?

Forbes’s attitude begs two questions. First, who is Commissioner Forbes to dictate the authority of the city prosecutor? The Police Department and the Law Department may both be part of the Executive Branch of Gotham City’s government, but they’re separate departments. The head of one such department doesn’t get to set the authority of what the head of another department can or cannot do. I’ll bet even the Mayor, the head of Gotham City’s Executive Department, can’t dictate who the city prosecutor gets to prosecute.

American governments operate under the principle of separation of powers and its attendant checks and balances. In most jurisdictions to maintain said checks and balances, the Executive Branch is charged with administering the law, but the Legislative Branch is charged with passing the laws. So it would be the Gotham’s City Council that would pass the laws establishing who the prosecutor may prosecute. That authority cannot come by fiat from the police commissioner.

The second question vis-a-vis prosecutors having no authority to prosecute criminals arrested by vigilantes: Didn’t you watch any Andy Griffith Show re-runs as a kid?

Current editions of Noah Webster’s seminal tome on word definitions defines vigilante as, “A person who is not a police officer but who tries to catch and punish criminals.” Let’s look at that.

Someone “who is not a police officer.” That’s you or me. Or Batman. Who “tries to catch and punish criminals.” I admit that “punish” part is troubling. Sounds a bit like a lynch mob. But Batman doesn’t punish the criminals, he leaves them for the police and lets the justice system prosecute them and punish them. So, let’s leave the punish part out of it. Then what do we have? Someone who is not a police officer, i.e., a citizen, who tries to catch criminals. According to Forbes, the city prosecutor doesn’t have the authority to prosecute anyone arrested in that manner.

What would happen if you or I saw a crime being committed, apprehended the perpetrator, and brought him to the police? We’d be making a perfectly valid citizen’s arrest. And if that’s good enough for Gomer Pyle, why isn’t it good enough for Batman?

Seriously, the ability of a common citizen to make a citizen’s arrest dates back in the good old days of common law. It continues today. All states allow citizen’s arrests. Most states have codified Citizen’s arrest in their statutes. In New Jersey, it’s N.J.S.A. 2A: 169-3, “Whenever an offense is committed in his presence, any constable or police officer shall, and any other person may, apprehend without warrant and process any disorderly person and take him before any magistrate of the county where apprehended.” (Emphasis added.)

So New Jersey has a law that allows Batman to do what he’s doing. The same law, by extension, must grant the city prosecutor the authority to prosecute the people brought in by Batman or other citizen’s arrests, at least implicitly. After all, if the law didn’t authorize prosecution of  citizen-arrested offenders, then why bother having a law allowing citizen’s arrests in the first place? So, Mr. Forbes, there’s a law that permits prosecution of those arrested by citizens and that pretty much trumps any edict issued by you.

Mr. Forbes, if you think your banning those criminals captured by Batman from being prosecuted will be a piece of cake, you’re wrong. Everyone knows, you can’t have your cake and edict, too.

Molly Jackson: Still Voyaging After 20 Years

(Ye Ed babbles: This afternoon we enthusiastically welcome Molly Jackson, our newest ComicMix columnist. As is our habit, Molly’s bio lurks below. She will be occupying this space revealing her cultural soul to us all each and every week! And now…)

This past week we marked the 20th anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager. I was 12 at the premiere of this show, and excited to see Captain Kathryn Janeway, a woman running a ship just like Captain Picard. Star Trek helped reinforce ideals taught to me by my parents, my religion and by scouting. Now at age 32 I still hold this show in such high regard, despite its flaws.

With the events happening today, the lessons of Star Trek, throughout all the series, become more and more important. The goal of exploration and discovery should be more important that the goal of power and conquest. Understanding cultures rather than controlling them. These humans came from a world that moved to where we want to be.

Voyager, in particular, resonated these ideals. A ship, lost in unknown space, rose above base desires to learn about other species. To explore new worlds and cultures. This show, like the other Star Trek series before it, studied racism and sexism in their own ways, using different species to fill in the roles of the subjugated in our own society. A captain ignored by another race for her gender shows her strength. A holographic doctor fights for his rights of personal ownership. These are just a few examples taken from real life into the mirror that science fiction always is.

Most important, Voyager taught that even at the heights that humanity had reached, they could still falter. Humans are fallible in the Star Trek universe. But rather than let them accept their failings, they did their best to rise above and grow as people. And who doesn’t want to live in their world? As Janeway remarked in episode “The 37’s” how humans built a world they could be proud of, where war and poverty don’t exist. Isn’t that what we are striving for today?

Yes, it has its cheesy moments. And yes, there are some episodes I would rather forget than watch again. But on the whole, who didn’t cheer for the little ship finding its way home. Voyager championed ingenuity and creativity in its crew. They had their moments of weakness. They had space battles and were willing to fight when they needed to. The show held to its morals, even when it suited them to cheat.

Go ahead and give Star Trek: Voyager a second or even a first watch. It’s available on Netflix and Amazon Prime. This time, look beyond the sets and the cheese and listen to the message of exploration and understanding. It may have been 20 years, but the message still holds true.

ComicMix Six: The Six Worst Movies of 2014

It’s easier to write bad reviews than good reviews, this is the secret of all criticism. Things that are good tend to be good in the same ways, in film it’s usually good acting, writing, directing, those kind of things. Things can fail in a seemingly unlimited number of ways. The movies that make up my bottom six movies of 2014 found some fantastic ways to fail.

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6. [[[Only Lovers Left Alive]]] – Only Lovers Left Alive would probably work in any number of other media. It would be a good novella. I’d probably enjoy it as a concept album from an edgy rock band. It would make an amazing series of oil paintings. It is not what I want as a film. It’s a big static nothing with terribly little in terms of character arc and substitutes all of that storytelling energy for some amazing idle shots. I’m not interested in moving pictures where nothing moves and where the stories don’t involve solid characters. I don’t care how beautiful it is.

Martha Thomases: Superhero Salespeople

Girls like superheroes. I can prove it, because a major media division has done the market research for me.

You can learn a lot about what people think of you by what they try to sell you. I don’t mean this personally. It’s not like some guy you meet at a conference who sizes you up and either offers you one of his room keys or life insurance, depending on his evaluation of your sex appeal.

No, I mean this on a more macro level. I mean the multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to discovering what you like and using that data to sell you crap.

For example, when I watch the network news in the evenings, I see a lot of ads for prescription medicines for diabetes, arthritis, and erectile dysfunction. From this, I understand that the advertisers think the people who watch the news are old, infirm, or both.

This is in stark contrast to the ads on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where the ads are all new movies, new video games, beer and Doritos. This is where Millennials get their news.

If I have Maury Povich on while I do my morning chores, I see ads for payday loans, attorneys who specialize in personal injury lawsuits, and for-profit colleges that offer two-year (or less) degrees. From this, I understand that the advertisers think I am an unemployed idiot.

When we get into prime-time television on the major networks, the stakes are higher. The audiences are larger, and the advertising rates more expensive. The networks don’t compete to attract fringe audiences. They want the mainstream.

Not just mainstream, but young, unattached, 18 – 29 mainstream. People who are just starting their independent lives … and forming their brand allegiances.

And to television networks, mainstream means both men and women. Some shows may skew more male or more female, and we can tell which is which by the advertising on the program. We see beer and Doritos when the target is the bros. We see make-up and fashion when the target is female.

When I watch the current crop of shows based on superhero comics – Arrow, The Flash, Gotham, Constantine, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – I see a lot of Revlon commercials.

Doesn’t the conventional wisdom maintain that women don’t like superheroes? Why are women watching these shows?

I have theories, none of which I can prove without procuring the services of expensive market research firms. However, in the absence of evidence, here is what I think:

  • These shows feature a variety of attractive young people, many of whom are in great shape but none of whom are so over-endowed that we wonder how they can stand up. I mean that for the actors as well as the actresses. They are better-looking versions of people the audience might know in their real lives.
  • A substantial number of the writing teams include women. I don’t have the percentages, but, while I would guess it to be less than half, I think it’s more than a third. This means that there are women creating dialogue that, to them, sounds like something a woman would say if she found herself in a situation with, maybe, Valkyries.
  • The emphasis is on action, not violence. This might seem like hair-splitting (but watch long enough and there will be a commercial for a shampoo that will fix that), but there is surprisingly little gore on most of these shows. There are fights, but they aren’t bloody. Major characters rarely get killed, and not for the sole purpose of motivating the male hero. There aren’t a lot of women in refrigerators.
  • The female cast members often have their own storylines that are not dependent on the male cast members to be interesting. This is most true on S.H.I.E.L.D. and absolutely true on the spin-off mini-series, Agent Carter, least true of Constantine (at least so far), but even then it is more true than it is in the current version of the comic on which it is based.

None of these traits seems to be turning off male viewers. If it does, the advertisers have decided that the women in the audience will spend enough money to be worth the loss.

I hope that the success of these shows encourages editors to hire more women to create mainstream comics. I hope the success of these shows encourages publishers to offer comics that will appeal more to female readers.

But mostly, I want to see a Felicity Smoak / Melinda May team-up.

 

ComicMix Six: Top Six Movies of 2014

With the 2014 cinematic year in the books it’s time to do the time-honored tradition of the film reviewer, making a list of the top movies of the year. It makes us feel important and it’s an easy ay to fill space during the dreadful early January period for movies. Here are my top six movies of 2014. I’ll be back in just a little bit with the six worst movies.

sdcc12-first-teaser-poster-for-gareth-edwards-godzilla-is-here-6030712

6. [[[Godzilla]]] – I wasn’t big on Godzilla when it came out, I though that it cheated me out of many of the giant monster fight that they owed me when I paid $15 for a ticket. But when I was gathering my list of top movies of the year I remembered the movie quite fondly. It’s suspenseful and, honestly, has plenty of action. It doesn’t reach the frenetic peaks that Pacific Rim did but then again Pacific Rim did not make my top 10 list last year. With more Bryan Cranston, this might have been my favorite movie of the year.

Tweeks: From Darkest Peru to the Big Screen, Paddington Bear

paddington-poster-s-8840026The Tweeks grew up listening to Stephen Fry reading Michael Bond’s Paddington series on all of our car trips giving us a great fondness for that bear,  worrisome Marmalade habit not withstanding.  So, of course we had to get straight to the cinema (with a group of Brit ex-Pats — who really really love their Paddington) as soon as the movie opened in the US.  We didn’t even know The Doctor was in it, but we think it serves as proof to any one still wondering if Peter Capaldi holds a connection to the younger Whovian set!  Staring Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville and the cutest CGI bear ever, it’s a great movie for the whole family.  No, really.  Adults will love it too.

Dennis O’Neil: The Ice Man Fallith

Ye Ed here. Denny’s words will not appear in this space this week.

Remember all that ice and snow and stuff? You might have some of your own. So does Denny. It’s possible you may have slipped on the ice at some time during your ventures around the sun; well, so has our erstwhile columnist.

Marifran tells me he hurt his back. That’s great – Denny didn’t break anything and hopefully will be back at the Mighty Wurlitzer before too long.

It was 75 Years Ago The Shadow hit the Comic Racks

  • News
  • January 21, 2015

shadow-comics-e1421883416738-1901679Seventy-five years ago, The Shadow and Doc Savage made their four-color debut on January 21st, 1940 in SHADOW COMICS #1, which also featured the first comic book appearances of Nick Carter, Bill Barnes, Frank Merriwell, Iron Munro and a variety of other popular Street & Smith pulp characters.

With the possible exception of WALT DISNEY’S COMICS & STORIES, it is unlikely that any other comic magazine ever debuted with as many pre-proven famous characters. The Shadow had already starred in nearly 200 pulp novels and several films, while his weekly radio show had the highest audience ratings in daytime radio. Iron Munro was based on John W. Campbell’s novel THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE, one of the inspirations for Jerry Siegel’s SUPERMAN, and featured the exploits of a human born and raised under Jupiter’s high gravity who arrived on Earth to discover that his denser molecular structure gave him invulnerability, super strength and the ability to leap huge distances. Doc Savage’s monthly pulp magazine was reputed to have the highest per-issue circulation of any hero pulp, while Nick Carter and Frank Merriwell had been American icons going back to the Dime Novel era of the previous century. SHADOW #1 also featured adventures of CRIME BUSTERS’ distaff detective Carrie Cashin, the Air Trails Boys and famous Street & Smith dime novel properties including Diamond Dick and Horatio Alger’s Bob Burton and Mark the Match Boy.

In creating the earliest comic book superheroes, Superman’s Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Batman’s Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Will Eisner took inspiration from the supermen of their own youth: legendary pulp heroes like The Shadow, Doc Savage, Zorro and The Whisperer. Bill Finger even acknowledged that his “first script was a take-off on a Shadow story” and that “I patterned my style of writing after The Shadow.” Bob Kane agreed, saying: “I suppose both The Shadow’s cloaked costume and double-identity role, as well as the extraordinary acrobatics of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., did more to my subconscious to create the character and personality of Batman than any other factors.”

Though Street & Smith had pioneered the hero magazine genre with its SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE pulps, the nation’s largest publisher of pulp fiction magazines was slow to move into the rapidly expanding comics market, initially rejecting comics because it avoided publishing material that couldn’t be printed on its own Manhattan in-house presses.

In 1937, Shadow wordsmith Walter B. Gibson had attempted to interest Street & Smith in a Shadow comic book after noticing that the new comic strip reprint magazines were successfully competing for newsstand space with THE SHADOW MAGAZINE. When promotions manager William de Grouchy pointed out that the most popular newspaper strips had already been bought up by rival publishers, Gibson countered, “Why not get up some and sell them to syndicates and get the rights to use them in comic books?  And we should begin with The Shadow.” Unfortunately, the executive initially rejected Gibson’s suggestion which could have resulted in The Shadow and other Street & Smith characters debuting in comics ahead of Superman and Batman (whose first appearance in DETECTIVE COMICS #27 was an unauthorized adaptation of “Partners of Peril,” a 1936 Shadow pulp novel).

Despite this delay, SHADOW COMICS was still one of the first comic books to bear the name of its lead character, closely following on the heels of AMAZING MAN COMICS, FLASH COMICS and BLUE BEETLE COMICS, and preceded the first issue of BATMAN by several months. However, despite its title, SHADOW COMICS was actually an anthology comic featuring a wide range of characters, and had originally been planned as ASTOUNDING COMICS and advertised as STREET & SMITH COMICS, before being retitled SHADOW COMICS in the eleventh hour to tie in with the release of Columbia’s THE SHADOW movie serial.

SHADOW COMICS sold an average of 425,000 copies per issue in 1941 and continued for 101 issues, with its final issue appearing in 1949. The Doc Savage and Bill Barnes four-color features introduced in its first issue were soon promoted to headline their own comic anthologies, with DOC SAVAGE #1 debuting in April 1940 and BILL BARNES later that same year. Supersnipe (“the boy with the most comic books in America”) also debuted in SHADOW COMICS before moving on to its own successful comic book series.

Fifteen years after the Golden Age series ended, THE SHADOW was revived first by Archie’s Radio Comics imprint, and was later published by DC Comics, Dark Horse and Dynamite, and also appeared in a Marvel Comics graphic novel by Denny O’Neil and Michael Kaluta. The original Shadow and Doc Savage pulp novels are also currently being reissued by Sanctum Books trade paperback imprint.

Mike Gold: Batman Resurrected

michael-keaton-8209952No, that’s not the title of the next Batman movie. Well, it might be. I suspect Warner Bros. hasn’t thought that far ahead. They’re too busy trying to make their Aquaman movie without giggling themselves to death.

A couple nights ago I was watching Batman Returns – you’ll recall that was Michael Keaton’s second and final Batflick. At the time of release, which was 1992, I thought it was an uneven movie. By and large, I liked the Catwoman stuff but I thought the Penguin parts were… foul. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen the movie, so when I surfed past it at a quarter-to-two in the morning, I thought it might be fun to check it out with my older and even more jaded eyes.

I was amused to discover the movie was broader than I remembered, but just as dark. It was almost as if Stanley Kubrick made the movie as a tribute to the 1960s teevee show. The Catwoman scenes weren’t as strong as I remembered, the Penguin scenes were better acted (but no better realized) than I thought, and the scenes with Michael Keaton that didn’t include either villain were, by and large, really good.

So what happened in the past 22 years? Certainly most of us enjoy the avalanche of Marvel Studios movies, the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe that, properly, excludes Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. But the tone and texture of the DC Movie Universe should differ from the tone and texture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just as your average DC Universe comic book differs from its Marvel counterparts – when done right.

(Yes, you read that right: I referred to the DC movies as a separate “Universe” from the DC teevee shows for one simple reason: they are separate. Completely separate. Needlessly and confusingly separate.)

So… what changed? Batman Returns really isn’t dated. Why would I be so taken with Keaton’s work this time around?

One word. Birdman.

You know the concept: an on-the-ropes actor best known for his playing a costumed superhero on the big screen tries to resurrect his career and give his life meaning by directing and starring in a Broadway play. For this effort, Keaton has been awarded top acting honors from the Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, the Independent Spirit Award, the Satellite Award (from the International Press Academy, not to be confused with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globes) and the AACTA International Award for Best Actor – that’s the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.

Keaton has also received an Oscar® nomination for Birdman, in a particularly tough category this year. “It’s an honor just to be nominated…”

I always liked Keaton, and he really knocked me over in Clean and Sober. But Birdman surpasses his previous efforts because he knows we will conflate his character with his career. He relies that pre-existing relationship, and he pulls it off magnificently.

I don’t think Keaton’s career has been on the ropes, but it was no longer as high profile. I suspect he liked it that way. But, post-Birdman, he is an A-Lister once again. And this is strictly because he decided to do Batman in the first place – and because he thought it over and appreciated what that meant to both him and his audience.

All top-drawer superhero actors age… with a few unfortunate exceptions. The plot to Birdman is all about what you do with yourself after you shed your tights. Keaton figured it out.

Brilliantly.

(“Oscar” is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, so watch your ass.)

 

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